Blood groups The existence of different blood groups was discovered in 1901 by the Austrian biologist Karl Landsteiner, who established a classification system based on the presence or absence of certain proteins or antigens on the surface of red blood cells, and composed of the groups A, B, AB and 0.
In 1940 Landsteiner and Alexander Weiner discovered another antigen which they called the Rh factor (they called it that way because they found it experimenting with Rhesus monkeys), which added another variable: the Rh antigen, which some people have (the Rh positive), but which others lack (Rh negative). This made it possible to avoid the incompatibility problems that continued to occur in transfusions.
There are, therefore, two main types of antigens, A and B, so type A blood only has A antigens, B blood only has B antigens, AB blood has both, and type 0 has neither. Additionally, blood may or may not have the Rh factor.
The combination of these options gives rise to the eight blood groups that the vast majority of the population has: A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+ AB-, 0+ and 0-, although there are also other minority blood types. , and an extremely rare one: the Rhnull (or Rh null), the ‘golden blood’.
Rh null
The main characteristic of Rhnull blood is that it lacks the Rh antigen, so its red blood cells do not have any of the more than 45 identified Rh antigens. This blood type is inherited, but for this both parents must be carriers of the mutation and that rarely happens. In fact, 99.9999994% of people have blood with Rh antigens.
Unlike the exclusive Rhnull (which does not have any Rh antigen), the blood types we know as Rh negative only lack one Rh factor, D, which is the most common.
Approximately 85% of people are Rh positive, 15% are negative, and only a few are Rhnull.
Very few people in the world
The first case of golden blood was described in 1961 in an Australian aborigine, and since then very few people in the world have been confirmed with this blood. Among the latest carriers discovered are two Chinese women detected in China in 2022.
Rh-null blood is compared to gold because of how valuable it is, although it is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because the few ‘chosen’ ones who have that treasure in their veins are universal donors, that is, their blood is valid for all people, including those who have ‘rare’ groups and, therefore, can help save lives.
And damn, since they can only receive transfusions of ‘golden blood’, which poses a risk, given the small number of people who have it, who live in different countries and that it is not easy to transfer the blood from one country to another .
Therefore, when it is discovered that a person has golden blood, they are encouraged to donate blood to serve as a reserve for themselves and for any other person who may need it.
On the other hand, one of the characteristics of people with null Rh is that their red blood cells have a shorter lifespan, which leads to different degrees of anemia.
The man with the golden arm
One of the cases of special blood is that of the Australian James Harrison, known as ‘the man with the golden arm’, who over six decades made more than 1,100 donations, with which it is estimated that he helped save the lives of 2.4 millions of babies.
Harrison, who had undergone a complicated operation when he was 14 years old, which required a significant amount of blood, decided to become a donor as soon as he could. The surprise was that his blood had a large amount of the Anti-D antibody that is used to prevent an immune response to Rh-positive blood type in people with Rh-negative blood type.
Their plasma was intended primarily for babies suffering from hemolytic disease of the newborn or HDN, a disorder that occurs during pregnancy in cases in which the mother has Rh-negative blood and the fetus has Rh+ blood, inherited from the father. In these cases, the mother produces antibodies in the blood that destroy the fetus’s red blood cells, which can cause problems in the baby’s development and even death.
Given the uniqueness of his blood, and thanks to his altruism, Harrison was, for more than 60 years, donating blood and plasma to women, including his own daughter. He retired as a donor in May 2018, at the age of 81, and after exceeding the age limit to be a donor.
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